Saturday, April 3, 2010

Cool in my Pretzelness: A musing on coolness

So dancing has always been hugely figurative for me, as I have not always been comfortable with how my body moves. It's how I know my boyfriend and I are a fit, because we both can't dance and somehow can do it together.In Baltimore, this group of grads from my amazing college put together a Collective that performed a brilliantly funny, sexy, genderfucking stage version of "Dirty Dancing." (http://effervescentcollective.org) THe audience was full of students/grads, these quirky, brilliant, creative kids. And at the end, they invited everyone onstage to dance. I attend this show with a Goucher grad and a recent friend from work: he is the very essence of hip, although bashful when you tell him that. Such control over his body, a former dancer and a physical comedian. And we dance a bit, first easy stuff. And then he takes my hands and twirls me, but I pretzel-myself. And I am not embarrassed, I am amused. And I laugh, because it's funny! So much shame can be turned to laughter if observed correctly. And me, in my 80s garb because I will use any excuse to dress up, feels cool in my pretzelness.

As I enjoy time with this friend and another, I feel that they embody cool. And do you all ever feel like a middler schooler, thinking, "The cool kids want to spend time with me!" And why should that be surprising? Not to sound like I feel that I embody cool, but I'm fascinated with these descriptors that we don't always allow to mesh with ourselves and how we can begin to include ourselves in these categories, in different ways.

1 comment:

I feel like that's been the essence of my friendships since starting college, and especially since coming back from London. It's an endless negotiation between throwing myself into fun and friendships and pulling back to say, "Wait, me?"